The bloody six-year feud between the Hatfield and McCoy families at the end of the 19th century has become so much a part of American folklore and cultural mythology that it would be unthinkable to refer to it, even 130 years after it started, as the McCoys and the Hatfields.

The indelibility of the mythology is just part of what director Kevin Reynolds and screenwriters Ted Mann and Ronald Parker were up against as they turned the feud into a three-part miniseries for the History Channel, airing over three nights next week. When you consider that the feud occasionally popped up in old cartoons and defined Americans' concept of "hillbillies" from old sitcoms like "The Real McCoys" to Al Capp's classic comic strip "L'il Abner," the challenge for Reynolds, Parker and Mann was to disabuse us of the notion that there was anything remotely humorous about the feud.

What we think we know about the dispute is that for several years, two families in West Virginia and Kentucky fought and killed each other. Some people know about a court case involving a stolen pig, which of course only adds to the inappropriate humor surrounding the feud. Other people may think the dispute must have had something to do with moonshine - it didn't, although hooch no doubt fueled the combatants on a regular basis.

"Hatfields & McCoys" does a good job of explaining the roots of the feud and helping us see that, regardless of whatever legitimacy there may have been in one family's hatred of the other, none of it was worth the lives lost over those six blood-soaked years.

Like many feuds, the hatred between the patriarchs of the two families began with friendship. Devil Anse Hatfield (Kevin Costner) and Randall McCoy (Bill Paxton) fought together in the Civil War, until Hatfield mounted his horse and returned home to his wife in West Virginia in the midst of battle. McCoy returned to the hills just across the state line in Kentucky much later, embittered by his experiences in the war and resentful of Hatfield for deserting. That bitterness was the tinder for what would become the titanic war between the two families.

No single cause

There was no single cause of the feud - one thing just seemed to lead to another. The murder of a McCoy family member by Hatfield's uncle, Jim Vance (Tom Berenger), was the first spark, followed by accusations that the Hatfields had stolen a pig from one of the McCoys. The families also fought over the timber rights to a plot of land deeded to the Hatfields by a deceased McCoy, whose descendants insisted that while the Hatfields owned the land, they had not been given its timber rights.

Then there was the "Romeo and Juliet" plot twist: Devil's son, Johnse (Matt Barr), fell in love with Roseanna McCoy (Lindsay Pulsipher), who left her family and moved in with the Hatfields, incurring biblical wrath from her father. She gave birth to a child out of wedlock, while Johnse went on to marry Roseanna's cousin, Nancy McCoy (Jena Malone). Today, some of these issues could be decided on "Judge Judy."

As the body count rises in the History Channel film, even the family members seem to forget why they hate each other, which only adds to our realization that if anyone had just taken a step back at the beginning, all those deaths could have been avoided.

Costner dominates the miniseries so thoroughly, he seems present even when Devil Anse isn't on the screen. Despite his nickname, Devil isn't a completely evil man. He has more than a little blood on his hands as the Hatfield family patriarch, but as the feud wears on, he grows increasingly aware of its tragic futility. He is tormented by the death and loss. Yet he is either unable or unwilling to stop it.

Scarred by war

Paxton has a tougher job with his character because Randall McCoy has been so scarred by the war, his daughter's perceived "betrayal" by taking up with Johnse, and by deaths among the McCoy clan. The role isn't written with as much nuance and depth as that of Devil Anse, but Paxton nonetheless brings him tragically alive.

The miniseries is blessed to have actress Mare Winningham as Sally McCoy. Loyal to her husband and children, a voice of moderation, Sally becomes an avenging angel when the family cabin is surrounded by Hatfields and set ablaze. Winningham has an uncanny ability to disappear into a role. The busybody Ida Corwin from TV's "Mildred Pierce" is nowhere to be seen in the McCoy family matriarch. Her determination to protect her family at all costs dooms her and her final moment onscreen breaks your heart with its clear-eyed emotional honesty.

The one thing "Hatfields & McCoys" can't deliver, even after the feud ended, is a clear reason for it to have happened in the first place. It was just hatred and resentment and it just got tragically out of hand.